CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Leave the city behind and spend the day on roads with texture. 380 km round from Montluel - plan on about 6 h 50 of riding. On the way it passes near Saint-Didier-sur-Chalaronne, Scenic stretch near Aveize and Sury-le-Comtal. The climb of the day is near Belleville.
Montluel is the kind of small French town that most people only see as a sign on the A42, which is a shame. It climbs a slope above the little River Sereine, on the escarpment that the locals call the Côtière, the step where the Rhône plain to the south rises up onto the plateau of the Dombes. For centuries this was border country: Montluel belonged to the House of Savoy and only became French with the Treaty of Lyon in 1601, and the old centre still has the narrow, defensive feel of a frontier town.
Read the complete Fuel stop near Montluel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Next is Food stop near Saint-Didier-sur-Chalaronne.
Saint-Didier-sur-Chalaronne sits just above the Saône, where the little Chalaronne river ends its slow journey across the Dombes and slips into the bigger river near Thoissey. From the edge of the village the land drops to the Val de Saône, a broad floodplain of meadows and poplar rows, and across the water the slopes of the Beaujolais rise in neat green ranks of vines.
Read the complete Food stop near Saint-Didier-sur-Chalaronne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Food stop near Saint-Didier-sur-Chalaronne is where this day stops to eat. Next is High point near Belleville.
Belleville-en-Beaujolais lies on the Saône at the foot of the Beaujolais hills, and it has one treasure that surprises most visitors: an eighteenth-century Hôtel-Dieu, a charitable hospital with great wards lined with curtained beds, a chapel and an apothecary with its original jars. It served the sick for more than two centuries and is now a museum, one of the best-preserved hospitals of its kind in France.
Read the complete High point near Belleville write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
This is where the road stops climbing. Next is Scenic stretch near Aveize.
High in the Monts du Lyonnais, Aveize looks out over a rolling plateau of meadows, hedgerows and small woods, where dairy farming has shaped the landscape for centuries. It is a modest village with a church and scattered farms, typical of these hills west of Lyon, where the air is fresher than in the city and the pace of life slower.
Read the complete Scenic stretch near Aveize write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Scenic stretch near Aveize, about halfway. Next is Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides return.
The Forez plain is one of those places you do not notice until you are in it: a wide, flat basin of the upper Loire, ringed by the Monts du Forez to the west and the Monts du Lyonnais to the east. This stop lies on its southern half, between Précieux, Sury-le-Comtal and Saint-Romain-le-Puy, in a country of fields, hedges, scattered farms and, here and there, the glint of a pond.
Read the complete Near Sury-le-Comtal, on the way back write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides return sits at 206 km, about halfway. Next is Photo stop near Le Péage-de-Roussillon.
In 1564, during a royal tour of France, the young king Charles IX stayed at the château of Roussillon, on the hill above what is now Le Péage-de-Roussillon, and signed an edict there that fixed the start of the year on 1 January across the kingdom. Until then, different regions began the year at Easter, Christmas or other dates. The château still stands, a Renaissance building with an elegant courtyard, overlooking the Rhône valley.
Read the complete Photo stop near Le Péage-de-Roussillon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Photo stop near Le Péage-de-Roussillon comes up about 266 km into the recorded legs. Next is Jura Wine Roads and Cascades checkpoint 8.
On the west bank of the Saône, opposite Neuville, the land rises quickly from the river into the Monts d'Or. This stop sits on that slope between Chasselay and Albigny-sur-Saône, where the last suburbs of Lyon fade into orchards, stone walls and small vineyards, and the hills begin to glow golden in the evening light.
Read the complete Near Neuville-sur-Saône write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jura Wine Roads and Cascades checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is Back to Jura Wine.
The Dombes plateau, north-east of Lyon, is the strangest piece of farmland in France. Spread across it are some thousand-odd ponds, made by hand over the centuries, filled in winter, fished in autumn, and then planted with cereals in a rotation that has been going for hundreds of years. Medieval monks and landowners dug them to farm carp, and the system still works, which is why the horizon here is a patchwork of reed, water and sky, full of herons and migrating ducks.
Read the complete Jura Wine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Back to Jura Wine. That is the ride.
Food stop near Saint-Didier-sur-Chalaronne → High point near Belleville is the logistics leg. Watch junctions, villages and speed changes, then let the roadbook do its job: move you out of the clutter without spending your best attention too early.
High point near Belleville → Scenic stretch near Aveize rides best with patience. Coastal roads change character with wind and visitors; keep overtakes boring and take the photo from a proper stop.
Scenic stretch near Aveize → Near Sury-le-Comtal, on the way back is the reward section in Lyon. Look through the bends, use legal pull-offs for photos and keep a little margin for tractors, cyclists and damp shade. The best ride here is smooth, not noisy.
Photo stop near Le Péage-de-Roussillon → Near Neuville-sur-Saône can flow quickly, but only if you keep village limits and junction sightlines sacred. Fast connectors are where rides get untidy when fatigue creeps in.